That Facebook Legal Settlement Email You Got Is For Real

Over the last week, about 125 million Facebook users in America received an email concerning a legal settlement of a class action suit against the social networking site.

While you were probably tempted to put the email in your spam folder alongside the offers for free iPads and solicitations from African "royalty," it's actually completely legit, and you could be eligible for a $10 check from Zuckerberg and company.

The suit involved Facebook's 2011 policy of putting users' profile pictures in "sponsored posts" about products they liked. This caused some embarrassing situations, such as the fellow who jokingly "liked" a 55-gallon drum of sexual lubricant and then became its Facebook poster boy.

Facebook ended the practice after complaints. But they were still sued over it, and they recently decided to settle a class action case against the policy for $20 million. While that only comes to about 16 cents per each American Facebook user, the assumption is that most won't join the case. The maximum payoff any plaintiff would receive is ten bucks.

However if more than four million Facebook users respond to the email the payout falls below $5 a person and then all the money goes to non-profits which focus on privacy issues.

So if you really want that ten bucks, don't tell your friends about this.